Jimu News Reporter Li Xiaoqin Li Xiancai Ma Qingni
Photojournalist Song Qiutao
Intern Zhan Zemei Yan Jiale
"The work place is far from home", "the labor intensity of the construction site is large", "the environment is relatively poor, the management is strict and unfree", "the social status is low and not decent enough"... It is these reasons that make it increasingly difficult for major construction sites to attract young migrant workers.
In view of the current situation of migrant workers in the construction industry, since July this year, a survey initiated by The Jimu News of Chutian Metropolis Daily shows that construction workers under the age of 30 account for only 10%. Those between the ages of 45 and 60 became the absolute mainstay.
The problem of age faults is prominent, and it also forces the majority of construction companies to try their best to retain young people: improve living conditions, attach importance to humanistic care, increase wages, give "establishment", give career upward channels... In this context, those who left still chose to leave, and the "post-95s" and "00" who insisted on stationing also did a different kind of life.
Surveys show that:
Millions of construction workers are "faulted" severely
The first phase of the Central China Science and Technology Innovation Industrial Park project, 192 first-line migrant workers, 13 people under the age of 30, accounting for less than 7%; 480 first-line migrant workers and 48 people under 30 years old in the China Construction Yipin Lanting Project, accounting for 10%; Wuhan Metro Rail Transit Line 5 3 standard front-line workers 246, 16 people under 30 years old, accounting for 7%...
On September 2, the results of the investigation of The Chutian Metropolis Daily Jimu News showed that among the 61 construction sites and 18,621 construction workers visited by the survey, only 10% of them were under the age of 30, and those around 50 years old were the absolute main force, and the phenomenon of age "faults" was serious. Not only is it difficult to attract new young migrant workers to the construction site, but a few are also "fleeing".
Age distribution of migrant workers
At noon on September 1, at a fruit shop on Huangli Road in Wuhan's Wuchang District, Xie Hu, a 26-year-old owner, was weighing watermelons to customers. This was previously a fast food restaurant, 2 months ago the owner closed the door to transfer, Xie Hu and friends, took over, became a small boss.
"There is a lot of competition to open a fruit shop, and it's hard, but it's better than working on a construction site before." Xie Hu is a native of Savage Valley Town, Fang County, Shiyan City, and after graduating from junior high school, he followed his father to work on construction sites in Wuhan, Xiangyang and other places, mainly building walls and plastering. In the first half of this year, he and his father also worked on a housing construction project in Huangpi District.
"I'm on the construction site for seven or eight thousand a month, and I don't have to worry about it, and my income is better than it is now." Xie Hu said he left the site mainly because it was "too boring." After work, they rarely go out of the construction site gate, almost all play mobile phones in the dormitory, and they are surrounded by middle-aged and elderly people like their fathers, and there is no communication. I came out with my father to work hard for so many years, bought a house in my hometown county, and saved some money, so I thought of living in a different way.
Chen Nan, the owner of Hubei Jinbiandan Construction Labor Service Co., Ltd., believes that it is inevitable that young migrant workers now have higher cultural quality, broader channels for obtaining information and employment channels, and economic pressure is not as great as that of their parents, and they are far away from the first-line construction sites in the wind and sun.
As the secretary general of the Labor Branch of the Hubei Construction Labor Service Association, Chen Nan believes that there are currently about one million front-line construction workers in Wuhan, the age fault problem has long been highlighted, and the "labor shortage" has emerged. ”
Returning from Toss and Turn:
Moving bricks and selling houses is not hard
On August 30, at the construction site of the second phase of the China State Construction Fudi Star City project, construction workers braved the scorching sun and poured concrete on the 39th floor of Building 9.
Among a group of dark-skinned, lean workers, Xiong Wei, 26, is conspicuously "young" as the project manager of a subcontracting unit of the project. "Little Bear" or "Little Fat" is the most common name for him.
Xiong Wei comes from a small village under Yanglin Town, Jingzhou, Hubei Province, and since he can remember, his parents have been working on the construction site, and every summer vacation in junior high school, he has gone to the construction site to "move bricks" and earn pocket money for himself. After graduating from college in 2016, he reluctantly chose to work at the construction site.
"Relatives were introduced to a construction site in Zhejiang, and everything started from scratch." Xiong Wei said that he and the workers got up early and greedily, and while working on the front line, they figured out what each type of work did and how to do it, while learning how to look at the map, how to organize construction and other engineering management knowledge.
Xiong Wei works on the construction site
That experience, for Xiong Wei in his early 20s, was bitter. Far from home, poor environment, too hard... Xiong Wei is somewhat envious of classmates of the same age, who can sit in the office in suits and shoes and enjoy the days with two days off. Less than 3 years later, he resigned and returned to Wuhan, deciding never to enter the construction site again.
After returning to Wuhan, Xiong Wei found a job as a real estate agent. However, here he saw the bitterness behind the "pin crown", they had to suffer no less than working on the construction site, "whether it is sunny or rainy, take the customer to climb the stairs to see the house... It is really necessary to truly experience the suffering of other industries in order to understand the road they want to take. Xiong Wei smiled and said that this experience gave him a new understanding of the "outside world" and a new expectation for the world inside the enclosure.
In June 2019, he stepped into the construction site again, this time with a clear goal, settling down and working hard. In just over two years, he was promoted from building chief to production manager and project manager, with an annual income of more than 150,000 yuan.
Xiong Wei told reporters that after work, he set himself a small goal - to obtain a bachelor's degree and pass the second-level construction division exam. "Even if we 'move bricks' on a construction site, we want to have a better development."
Try to start a business
Looking forward to the construction site to strive to become a family
On August 30, at the site of the second phase of the transformation of K4 plots in Shilipu Chengzhong Village, Hanyang, China, 8 construction tower cranes were erected, and Hu Chong, the foreman of the tower crane driver, held a walkie-talkie and shouted with the driver of the high-altitude tower crane from time to time, telling them to safely transport the building materials to the designated location.
At 3 p.m. on the same day, the Jimu news reporter saw Hu Chong at the construction site, with a dark complexion and a solid figure, and the scene was properly directed, which was his first impression of the reporter.
Hu Chong, 29, from a rural family in Tongren, Guizhou, and an older brother who dropped out of school after finishing his third year of junior high school. Since 2012, Hu Chong has been working as a crane driver at the construction site.
Hu Chong was climbing the tower crane
"When I first chose this profession, I mainly felt that the income was OK and the work was relatively free." Hu Chong said that the first monthly income was more than 4,000 yuan, because of the early entry into the industry, rich work experience, and then went south to the north in a number of construction sites to dry tower cranes, the current here under normal circumstances can get 8,000 yuan per month.
In the No. 3 building of the project, the main structure has been constructed to 6 floors (22.15 meters), and Hu Chong immediately went to the top of the shift because of the temporary leave of the Driver of the No. 3 Tower Crane. Under the safety measures, he had to climb step by step to the 50-meter-high tower crane cab for operation.
Year after year, day after day on the construction site to dry the tower crane, will you feel bored, have you thought of finding another way out? In the face of reporters' questions, Hu Chong introduced a period of his own "entrepreneurial" experience: in 2020, in a construction site in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, he had invested tens of thousands of yuan, and several other partners jointly funded the contracting of the tower crane operation at the site, and at the same time, he was also a tower crane foreman on the construction site. This experience made him feel that he was still working the construction site.
Due to working in the front-line construction site all year round, the time and opportunity to contact the opposite sex are relatively small, Hu Chong is still single. In the face of the family's urging for marriage, he was slightly calm, "Save more money so that you can marry your daughter-in-law and support your family in the future. ”
Transformation succeeds
From "migratory birds" to prefabricated industrial workers
August 27, Jiangxia, Wuhan.
After several days of rainy weather, the shores of Lake Tomson ushered in a long-lost coolness.
Along the Miaoshan Avenue, Jimu News reporters arrived at the jiangxia factory of the second batch of prefabricated building industry bases in the country - Meili Building Assembly Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Meili Assembly).
In the yellow and blue machinery factory, the quality inspector Cheng Zhiwu carried the toolbox in a hurry, as the "final gatekeeper" of the components leaving the factory, on the same day, he will conduct professional testing of 350 prefabricated components in the yard.
"This is a vernier caliper, used to measure the size of the component", "concrete rebound meter can quickly reflect the density", "this steel detector, as long as it fits the surface of the component, the distribution of the steel bar inside it is clear at a glance"..." The thickness of the wall is 19.5 cm, the rebound value is 30Mpa, and the steel bar distribution is detected correctly. After about 10 minutes of sampling measurements, Cheng Zhiwu recorded the data in the area and stored it on the mobile phone.
Cheng Zhiwu at work
Cheng Zhiwu is from Xiaogan, Hubei Province. At the age of 19, after graduating from high school, he left his hometown and entered the construction site, and began a long journey of "migratory birds" with the craft of bricklaying and plastering. Inner Mongolia, Beijing, Xi'an, Guangzhou, Xiamen... Cheng Zhiwu traveled most of China.
Until 2017, at the age of 37, under the introduction of acquaintances, he came to the beautiful assembly Jiangxia factory. After 6 months of professional training, he grew from an assembly worker to a skilled assembler; in 2018, he went to Qingdao as an assembly instructor; with a hard-working personality, in June 2019, Cheng Zhiwu became a quality inspection staff of the production base.
"Most of the construction period of brick plastering is about a year, and once this process is completed, I have to inquire about the next project and worry about my livelihood." Especially during the Spring Festival, luggage and belongings should be packed and new projects will be carried out in the coming year. Cheng Zhiwu said that compared with the previous migratory bird-style part-time work, "the current life, steady and stable, was completely unexpected before." Today, his monthly salary is basically more than 8,000 yuan, eating in the canteen, living in a dormitory with air conditioning and a separate bathroom, playing basketball billiards after work, and on weekends, he can also ask three or five workers to go fishing in Tangxun Lake and Liangzi Lake.
The reporter learned that in the beautiful assembly Jiangxia factory, more than 100 construction workers are mostly young industrial workers under the age of 40, and the average monthly income is 7,000 to 10,000 yuan. Among them, many of them are migrant workers who have "transformed" from traditional construction sites.
"At present, the production of the same unit of PC components, the assembly base labor is reduced by 50%, and the production efficiency is 5 times higher than the traditional." In today's increasingly high technical requirements, the transformation of traditional migrant workers into industrial workers may be a new trend. Zhu Zhi, administrative director of Meimei Assembly, introduced.
Cause analysis:
Increased employment channels "drain" more young people
The data show that the main reasons for the lack of young migrant workers are that the work is far from home, the time is not fixed, the work intensity is high, the working environment is relatively poor, the social status is low, and the work is not decent. It also includes a large work hazard factor, difficulty in protecting rights and interests, and a certain degree of wage arrears.
Tax Ping, project secretary of the Industrial Park of the Optics Valley Comprehensive Insurance Zone of the Second Bureau of China Construction, believes that young people are reluctant to enter the construction site, and part of the reason is the lack of relevant skills, the cyclicality of skill learning, and emerging industries such as takeaway do not have such requirements, and the threshold is low, resulting in many young people choosing to deliver takeaway, or "transforming" from the construction site to deliver takeaway.
In February 2020, millions of "delivery riders" had a clear professional name of "online delivery man". The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security released a report saying that in the next five years, the demand for online delivery workers will reach 30 million, and they have become the "new infrastructure" with temperature in the city.
Salary and treatment of construction workers
The data shows that most riders are 21-40 years old, relatively young, 60% of riders earn 4000-8000 yuan, the main motivation is "low employment threshold" and "can take care of the family".
Compared with the "low employment threshold", front-line migrant workers generally need to have a skill, and most of these migrant workers come from remote rural areas or families with relatively poor family conditions, the level of education is relatively low, and they need to make money to support their families in a relatively short period of time, and if they want to become a rider, they can be trained for three days to work, so compared with occupations such as "online delivery workers" who can earn quick money, the attractiveness of construction sites to young people is greatly reduced.
The main reason why young migrant workers are difficult to find
Sun Donglin, a national moral model and chairman of Hubei Xinyi Brothers Construction Group Co., Ltd., believes that although the living environment of construction workers has improved and their treatment has improved, insurance and social security issues urgently need to be improved. Many construction workers follow the small package foremen, and it is difficult to defend their rights in the event of a safety accident, "which is one of the reasons why young people cannot be retained at construction sites." ”
Expert advice:
Let the construction workers stop being city passers-by
The special research report conducted by the Wuhan Construction Industry Association on migrant workers this year pointed out that at present, the wage level and timeliness of migrant workers are no longer the main contradictions, and the accommodation and food of migrant workers have also been greatly improved. However, the construction industry is still facing a labor shortage, many of the older generation of migrant workers would rather continue to work the construction site than the next generation to continue to engage in construction construction, and the problem of faults of construction workers is very serious.
The main demands of migrant workers
In the view of Li Hongqing, secretary general of the Wuhan Construction Industry Association, the core contradiction is the issue of "status". Due to the "arrears" of employees from occupational titles, living environment, rest rights, labor protection, amateur leisure, interpersonal relations, etc., construction workers have no dignity and low social status.
"Almost all construction workers have been moving from one wall to another for many years, in the city, but they are passers-by, and they are not integrated into urban life at all." Li Hongqing said they had never even seen what a project they had built by themselves would look like after it was put into operation.
A construction site under construction
"It is imperative to enhance the sense of belonging of migrant workers." Chen Nan, secretary general of the Labor Branch of the Hubei Construction Labor Service Association, also believes that migrant workers not only have a sense of belonging in the city, but also have no sense of belonging at the construction site, "After a project is completed, the team may be disbanded and they will have to find other work." Chen Nan suggested that many labor workers are following large construction enterprises, for excellent migrant workers, construction enterprises can be guaranteed and motivated by signing labor dispatch contracts, turning into regular employees, etc., so that they feel safe and have a sense of belonging, so as to attract more young people to join.
Li Hongqing pointed out that at present, we must not only consider the material needs of workers, but also consider the spiritual needs of workers at a deeper level, and implement them from all aspects of comprehensive supporting measures, so that construction workers have a truly equal social status like factory blue-collar workers and enterprise white-collar workers.
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